Limit
by alstair
Summary: Dark desires. Secret hopes. Tortured souls. With the hollow in Ichigo bent on taking over Ichigo's--and Ishida's--lives are about to turn inside-out. Ichigo x Ishida Uryuu. UPDATED: CHAPTER 4
1. Escapism and Denial

**Title: Limit**  
Author: alstair  
Pairing: Ichigo x Ishida Uryuu; Hollow Ichigo x Ichigo; Hollow Ichigo x Ishida Uryuu; Ishida Uryuu x Inoue Orihime  
Rating: NC-17Warnings: Angst, swearing, graphic violence and gore, boysex, non-con, voyeurism, torture  
Beta: fishingforboots  
Disclaimer: Kubo Tite owns Bleach and the characters of Bleach

* * *

**Part I: Escapism and Denial**

_No man was ever so much deceived by another, as by himself.  
- Greville_

* * *

_**Escape 0.01 - Ichigo**_

* * *

When had he first become aware of _Its_ presence?

He was no longer certain. Maybe It had always been there.

Sometimes when he closed his eyes he saw a sun red as blood sinking in the west while the sky wept, each drop that fell an icy needle on paper-white skin. Sometimes it had been a length of white cloth flapping in a nonexistent breeze. Was it then, when those dreams began?

Or was it when he'd begun to feel an inexplicable desire to cut, to plunge his zanpakuto into his vanquished enemies until the red of their blood ran down and tainted the ground, the sky, his robes? When a part of him deep down began to delight in the slaughter and destruction--to enjoy the sensation of tearing flesh and to revel in the sound of clashing swords?

_Rend. Break body, bones, and soul. Rob those who are weak their dignity, their hope. Let them wallow in their misery. Laugh at their plight. Bask in their agony. Let the taste of their blood sate your appetite, fill your senses, and spur you on to destroy all--past, present, and future._

_Enjoy._

The voice that had whispered in his ears was hoarse, distorted as it urged him on to kill. _Kill. Kill. Kill._

* * *

_Monday, 7:00 am_

"You know, you look terrible Ichigo," Mizuiro said.

"Yeah yeah, what's with those eye bags of yours?" Keigo leaned forward to get a closer look at the dark circles that hung below Ichigo's eyes. Then, as though the sight had spurred a brain that was unaccustomed to complex thought patterns, his face split into a wide grin as he said with all confidence, "Aha! I know now. You stayed up late to play the newest game release didn't you?"

Mizuiro looked askance at Keigo. "Not everyone is like you, _Asano-san_."

"Wa wa wa. It's Keigo. Keigo! What's with the polite speech?"

"Nothing, _Asano-san_."

Mizuiro picked up his book and continued to read, pointedly ignoring Keigo's ongoing tirade. Finding no audience in Mizuiro, Keigo turned to Ichigo. But the sight of the Shinigami, with his head propped by a hand staring disconsolately out the window, stopped whatever words Keigo had planned on saying. He'd seen the face Ichigo wore before in his own sister that day they wore mourning black to the funeral of their parents. It was as if some part of the orange-head had _died_ and he hadn't yet recovered from the loss. A shiver ran down Keigo's spine.

A softly whispered _Can you leave me alone for a while was enough_. Turning back only once, Keigo and Mizuiro made their way to their own seats leaving Ichigo to continue staring at some unidentifiable point in the horizon outside.

It wasn't as though Ichigo purposely wanted to worry his friends, but he knew that explaining the truth would make little sense to them. It would likely just provoke remarks from Keigo to the effect that he'd been watching too much anime or playing too much at the arcades--so much so that he'd begun having weird dreams. Dreams. Little would Keigo know that in the event of such a remark he'd actually get half the truth. The dreams that had begun to plague him in his sleep, and occasionally even in his waking hours, since they'd returned from Soul Society were frighteningly disturbing. Anything was better than those dreams. Dreams where he'd licked the blood off his zanpakuto with crazed eyes, spat on his enemies' frightened faces, and ground his heels into their gaping wounds until their screams became the very air he breathed. Anything was better than that madness. Anything.

He knew it was only a matter of time before the madness took over. That was why he refused to sleep, instead spending his nights in Shinigami form hunting hollow despite the fact that another Shinigami had been sent by Soul Society to take charge of any further hollow purification. That was why he refused to even so much as close his eyes, even for a minute, lest the twisted and distorted voice that constantly whispered in his ear dragged him back into the abyss of _Its_ making.

But there is a limit to everything, even the endurance of a Shinigami--and a human one at that.

The clacking sound of the classroom door signaled the start of lessons. With half an ear he listened to Ms. Ochi and the roll call. The usual reminders, the usual dead silence at her announcement that the three constant absentees were probably alright as they were a "bunch of punks." The normality of everything was both relief and pain.

The weights that seemed now to be constantly attached to his eyelids threatened to destroy his control of self, threatened to throw him back into the hell hole of his inner mind. With a sharp pinch into the inner flesh of his arm, Ichigo desperately tried to keep awake. He had no plans of losing whatever control he still had.

If the Quincy who sat no more than two feet away from him had any idea what measures Ichigo was resorting to in order to maintain his consciousness, the dark-haired boy would likely only sneer in disdain. _What a stupid thing to do Kurosaki. Well, I suppose a _Shinigami l_ike you can only resort to such brutish tactics to keep bodily discipline. Maybe you should do something similar to rein your spirit force in. Maybe that way we won't have to be plagued by your reiatsu flooding the place like a leaky faucet._

Ichigo smiled grimly. The fact that he'd actually considered going up to Ishida just to get dished by the Quincy, just so he could retain his sanity, was the surest sign that he was losing it. He'd long since given up on coffee when it stopped giving any further visible effects and only left him jittery. Having to resort to adrenaline, whether from pain, from fighting, or from any verbal scrimmage, only made his current situation more desperate than it already was.

He could still recall the last dream he'd had before he began the entire sleep deprivation plan. He'd been standing near a cliff with a very long vertical drop. It had been frightfully cold in that place. Although no snow fell, it had felt as if the sky itself was frozen solid. Behind him had been a forest. But it was no forest of trees, even barren leafless ones such as those that dotted the terrain when winter's bite came.

All that had been there, as far as he had seen, were hands thrusting out from the ground like wayward saplings, charred and mutilated with fingers half severed and dangling down from dead sinew and tendons. The scent of blood had filled the air like a palpable weight pressing against his lungs. He had been afraid to breathe. He had been afraid that some madness might overcome him and turn his disgust into bloodlust.

Shaking himself from his reverie, Ichigo tried to focus on the lesson. Math. How boring. The teacher was explaining some geometric theorem and proof. One glance told him that as usual only Ishida and probably Inoue understood anything that their sensei was talking about, the former making copious notes. The guy was a total obsessive compulsive. Nut case, if you had to ask him. But the second half of that last dream he'd had made him wonder if the real nut case was not Ishida but Ichigo himself.

Who would want to have sex with a stuck up, infuriating smart ass?

The answer was simple. _Me._

And the fact that he'd done it to Ishida's dead body without the Quincy's approval had only made the act--and the dream worse.

He had made his way into the forest of hands and pulled at one. It had been vaguely familiar, with a cross-shaped pendant on a silver bracelet wound twice around its wrist. It had been hard to pull up, as though being buried in the ground was a relief from the carnage that was the world above. When the earth finally gave way and he'd uncovered the body whose hand it was, he had first felt shock, then panic, at seeing the lifeless blue eyes of the dead Quincy staring back into his own brown ones. One look at the slashes on the dark-haired boy's chest told him the wounds were from a zanpakuto, and not just any zanpakuto.

_Me. It was I who did this to him. No matter how irritating a guy he was, he did not deserve this. And certainly not by my hands._

He had cradled the Quincy in his arms and despite knowing that the soul that had been housed in that physical shell had long been gone, he called softly and loudly in turn the dark-haired boy's name. _Ishida. Ishida!_ He had shaken the thin shoulders with whatever strength he had left. He had tried punching the dark-haired boy, remembering that dream-inflicted pain sometimes made people wake up. But there had been no relief from such an act. In the end, in desperation, he'd violated the Quincy's dead and mutilated body in the hopes that by doing that one deplorable act, an act Ishida would never forgive, the Quincy might snap his eyes open and retaliate.

A cracked voice whispered by his ear. _But you liked it didn't you. Fucking the Quincy boy._

_Shut up!_ he mentally commanded the Other being that resided in him.

_There's no use telling me to shut up Ichigo._ It smirked. _The same way there's no use telling me to go away. I am you, and pretty soon you'll be mine._

_No. I won't let you, you bastard._

That Other laughed, the distorted voice drowning out all real and imagined sounds.

A sharp prod on his shoulders brought him crashing back into reality. The teacher standing beside his desk scowled. "Enough daydreaming, Kurosaki. Read page 110. Quickly. We haven't all day."

Still shaking from the verbal parrying with his inner hollow he stood up, picked up the book that lay open on his desk, and flipped the pages until he found the one that was required.

All he saw was black.

Keigo would later swear that when Ichigo blacked out, and the Shinigami had fallen face first into the cold hard floor, the first person to stand up was Ishida. With calm measured movements the dark-haired boy had loosened the orange-haired boy's tie and with an equally calm voice asked their teacher permission to bring the still unconscious Ichigo to the infirmary.

* * *

_"I told you before that there's no escaping, didn't I?" The paper white skin of the Other Ichigo pressed against him as he hissed into the Shinigami's ear. It licked the side of Ichigo's face, its tongue ice against Ichigo's hot skin. "I told you there is no escaping from me. Now you'll pay the price. Enjoy the show."_

_The space that had been blank earlier now sported a long wall. The battered concrete had three windows amidst graffiti of "WAR is the ONE constant" and "FUCK you all." But unlike normal windows these didn't look out into a common outside--or even any outside scene. It was like watching three vaudeville routines all at the same time, but unlike the famous shows these involved the same dark blue-haired boy wearing glasses. All of them likewise involved that boy in various compromising sexual positions._

_The leftmost window--or screen as it should more properly be called--showed an Ishida pressed against a cold hard floor, glasses askew on a face filled with dread and pain, so unlike the stiff and proper one he wore to school. Here all his raw emotions were bared for the world to see. A hand pulled the Quincy by his hair, partially lifting the lithe body to reveal various bruises on the pale skin. Some had the blue-purplish black tinge of older abuse while others had the fresh red of just inflicted pain. Some welts ran diagonally across the boy's chest like whiplashes. The limp body was pulled up and up until the boy's weight was supported solely by the hand that held up his hair and his own broken ankles._

_The man who stood before the Quincy was not alone. Someone, he did not know who, viciously backhanded the dark-haired boy. A thin trail of blood ran down the side of the Quincy's mouth. Gripping the chin of the Quincy in one hand, the man forced Ishida's jaw open and roughly shoved his own twitching cock into the boy as first he, then the other men with him, gangbanged the once proud Quincy._

_The middle screen showed an Ishida held in what looked like an isolation cell at night. The padded walls muffled all sounds. Ichigo knew these were also meant to prevent the patient from injuring himself if he were to have any fits. The shadows that played across the cell's walls were that of a man approaching the sleeping figure of the Quincy. A pair of handcuffs ensured the dark-haired boy would not escape. Carefully, almost as if the man who'd snuck into the cell were opening a very delicate package, the man snipped at Ishida's clothes with a pair of scissors until, like peeling a banana, the Quincy was naked where he lay. A slap brought the boy into awareness and a sharp blade pressed against the Quincy's throat ensured Ishida's cooperation as the unknown intruder had his way with him._

_The last screen showed an Ishida leaning against a wall; his legs splayed apart, his head pressed against what looked to be a blackboard as he masturbated. The look of ecstasy on his young face as he pushed first one then two fingers into his ass while the other hand worked his cock was captured by a film camera being run by a person or persons unknown off to the side. Copper wires wound around the Quincy's throat, exposed to the perspiration beading the boy's pale skin. The other end of the wires attached to what looked like a voltage regulator, and a thick masculine hand hovering above a switch on the box made it clear to Ichigo that, should Ishida stop, he would feel more than a little pain at the current that would surge through his body._

_Not that the Quincy could stop anyhow. The mouth that panted hard seemed to mouth words Ichigo could not hear. There was no sound in this world. Even Ichigo's own heartbeat seemed muted._

_Then, as if someone had switched on a radio or a television set somewhere in the background he seemed to hear his name. _Kurosaki._ Patiently at first, then increasingly persistent. _Kurosaki! Kurosaki!

His eyes flew open. He was not in the classroom anymore. The white curtains, the harsh medical smell of disinfectants, and what felt like a soft bed underneath his tired and aching body told Ichigo he was in the infirmary. The pair of glasses and the icy blue eyes that turned to him as his vision focused quivered with the same irritation and anger that laced the dark-haired boy's voice.

"The next time you decide to go to school, do us all a favor and do not pass out because you haven't slept!"

Ichigo turned to his side, unwilling to look at the boy glaring at him.

"Shut up, Ishida. Leave me alone. No one asked you to babysit." Ichigo's voice lacked the usual sharpness, the usual bite, as he addressed the Quincy. He didn't even have the strength to be angry or irritable anymore.

"Hmph." He felt, rather than saw, the Quincy fold his arms over his chest. "Fine then. But next time you are about to die don't expect me to come to your rescue."

The swish of a curtain being rapidly opened and the clacking sound of the infirmary door told Ichigo Ishida had left. Carefully, he resumed his earlier prone position. Thankful as he was that Ishida had actually troubled himself to check up on the Shinigami, he did not think he would have been able to hide what would have been glaringly obvious had the Quincy pulled back the sheets that covered him up to his chin. He did not think any medical text the Quincy had read would help him to explain why Ichigo had a hard-on after having lost consciousness--and not the normal early morning sort that he'd often enough dealt with in the bathroom at home.

Ichigo curled up in bed, and, cursing under his breath, surreptitiously stretched his hand down.

* * *

_**Escape 0.02 - Ishida**_

* * *

When had he first become increasingly aware of _his_ presence?

He was no longer certain.

Sometimes he found himself unconsciously searching for the now all-too-familiar reiatsu; searching for its all-too-familiar pressing weight and tingle on his bare skin. He found himself listening for the baritone voice that often enough turned towards him in irritation--encounters which, despite the bickering that often ensued, he nonetheless cherished.

But what had first been mere interest in an existence that, for all his intents and purposes, was diametrically opposed to him had rapidly turned into something more, something which he denied as an illusory passing fancy on his part. But however much he denied it, he could not silence the small voice in his chest that whispered to him in the dark recesses of his room at night.

_Love him or hate him but you cannot escape him. Ever since that day you decided to snap the hollow bait before his eyes your paths have been irrevocably crossed. Accept it. You want him. Here in the cold loneliness of your apartment you seek his warmth, seek his touch. He is the sun burning fiercely in the sky. You are the moth, knowing the dangers but unable to resist, attracted to the flame you know could well burn you, kill who you are now._

He had vainly tried to ignore the stirrings of his desire.

* * *

_Monday, 5:00pm_

"Is Kurosaki-kun alright?" The voice that spoke to him was soft, full of concern.

Ishida nodded. He wanted to smooth away all the worries and the pain Inoue felt, but he did not know how. Inoue, whose anxieties he was supposed to allay, was much better at comforting than he ever was or probably would be. All he could offer the girl was his understanding silence.

"I wonder what's been bothering Kurosaki-kun," she continued. "Lately...before this...he...It's almost as if...as if he was a zombie--or someone completely different. I tried to ask him once but he wouldn't say anything. Do you think you could ask for me, Ishida-kun?"

Ishida nodded, although he already knew what the orange-haired Shinigami would say--especially to him. _Fuck off Ishida. Mind your own business. _He would have answered the same way had Ichigo inquired about him for a similar reason. He chose to say nothing to Inoue, knowing that she had meant well when she'd asked him.

Beside Ishida, Inoue struggled to keep up. Ishida slowed his steps. It usually took two of Inoue's steps to match one of his own. He normally tried to control the length of his strides when he walked her to her apartment, but whenever any mention of the Shinigami was made they unconsciously quickened. Just as they did now.

_No,_ he mentally corrected himself. _My walking speed has nothing to do with Kurosaki._

No, nor was the sudden superfluous spate of fevered studying of topics that they would not tackle in months if not years, making him oblivious to all else except the page before him.

The rest of the way home passed in silence. He had never been good at conversations and somehow Inoue understood. She understood more than most of the guys in the class thought. They looked at her solely as an easy pass, once they could get her away from Tatsuki who protected her like a lioness did her newborn cub. They failed to see what was plain to Ishida--that, behind the ditzy and clumsy actions she sometimes did, Inoue was one of the most caring and most kindhearted individuals he had ever known. He had not been surprised when she'd sheltered a cat abandoned in the rain and patiently nursed it back to health. Neither had he been surprised when she had not complained when the cat, after it had rested and fed, fled into the night. It was good being with Inoue. It _would_ be good to stay with Inoue. It would be...

But somewhere in his heart he knew he was deluding himself.

And apparently she too sensed that he was.

Rather than simply parting when they'd reached her apartment she instead invited Ishida in. He had first tried to protest saying it wasn't right and proper that a single man enter the house of a single woman but the serious look on her normally cheerful face silenced any further protests on his part. She wanted to talk. It would be impolite and ignoble of him to ignore her and walk away when it was clear that whatever she had to discuss with him was of great enough import that she would willingly risk a slur on her character.

Once seated, she served Ishida tea and plunged into the heart of the issue.

"Are you happy Ishida-kun?"

"I don't understand, Inoue. What do you mean?" Caught aback by the directness of the question and all that it implied Ishida opted to seek clarification even though, somehow, he already knew what she had meant by her remark.

"I mean, are you happy with being with me, Ishida-kun? You don't want to spend your time with…someone else?" Her face gazed into his with earnestness.

"Of course I am." He replied quickly...perhaps too quickly.

Pause. She busied herself pouring more tea for the both of them. When she next looked into Ishida's face he knew his words had only served to somehow strengthen her conviction that his true feelings lay elsewhere. She laid a soft hand on his arm.

"You can stop pretending to yourself, Ishida-kun. You'll just hurt yourself even more."

He smiled grimly to himself. She was right. Each time he'd denied the feelings that made him catch his breath whenever the Shinigami had passed close by him, he had felt a cold hand clutch his heart, freezing him from the inside out. He knew all the forms his lie had taken. He knew that each time he repeated to himself that he was fine with the way things currently were some part of him died, never to be resurrected.

"Since when did you know?" was all he could say.

"I've guessed for some time. But today I became sure."

Ishida bowed his head and closed his eyes. He could still clearly see the body of Kurosaki as it had lain on the cold hard classroom floor. It reminded him of a broken doll but one which, despite its brokenness, was nonetheless beautiful, noble. He could still hear the dull thud of the fall and how his heart had seemed to stop beating for the second it took for the Shinigami to crumple. He could still feel the warmth of the Shinigami's skin on his own as he had checked the other boy's pulse. He could still feel the perspiration that had beaded his back, the cold dread that filled the pit of his stomach, and the unconscious body's heavy weight as he'd carried Kurosaki to the infirmary.

Then he recalled the way the normally brash, brave face had contorted in its fitful sleep. He had reached out to touch the tan arm of the orange-haired boy, desiring to somehow relieve the pain the other suffered.

But he had not. He had not wanted Kurosaki to know how he felt. He had not wanted _himself_ to recognize what it was that he felt. So he had opted to call out to the Shinigami instead.

Ishida lifted his face to look at Inoue's own quietly sad eyes. And he knew that just as he wanted Kurosaki so did Inoue, and perhaps always would. But, owing to who she was and always would be, she would never once complain, never once begrudge another his or her happiness--even if it meant she herself would never have the happiness of having the man she loved love her back.

"I'm sorry Inoue," Ishida said, quietly.

She squeezed his arm one last time before letting go. "You've done nothing you should be forgiven for."

* * *

_Monday, 10:30pm_

The room felt far emptier than it normally did. The black sofa in the living area felt too large, as though it had been meant for more than two. The kitchen table felt too wide as though it had been meant to hold more than a single solitary bachelor's plate. The fridge was too empty, the cabinets too meagerly filled. He had always lived as frugally as he could but just then he wished his apartment was not as sparsely furnished. He wished for the clutter of any other boy's room, even if it meant only scattered clothes or crumpled sheets of paper--anything was better than all the empty spaces that seemed to mock the empty spaces in his own heart.

He tried to curl up in the middle of the single bed that felt too cold, at once too small and too large. He tried to sleep but sleep forsook him. The silence bothered him. Any small noise annoyed him. _You can stop pretending to yourself, Ishida-kun._ He had. His sleeplessness and the unsettling loneliness that assailed him was proof he'd accepted the fact that he looked at Kurosaki Ichigo as more than friend, ally, or rival.

And while it meant abandoning his practice of rationalizing his feelings, it did not mean he had to admit what he felt to any other living soul.

He still had his pride.


	2. Consummation

**Part II: Consummation**

_What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart? What jailer so inexorable as one's self?_

_- William Feather_

* * *

_**Act 0.01 - Ishida**_

* * *

_Monday, 11:59pm_

Ishida did not know what it was that had jolted him awake after he'd just fallen asleep. Had it been the absence of the blanket that had somehow twisted away and fallen to the floor? Had it been a cat mewling in the distance? Whatever it was, it left an unsettling weight in the pit of his stomach.

He lay still in the middle of his bed, every nerve quivering in anticipation. His chest tightened, his muscles tensed. The feel of the night had changed. The shadows that gently slid the world into slumber now concealed, conspired. The wind, where it had before softly caressed, now only felt harsh, dry, and biting. Each noise was heightened and signaled the start of an attack. The darkness was a palpable force bearing down on his slender body.

If pressed for an explanation, Ishida would have been unable to give the usual solid, air-tight arguments. The hypersensitivity that gripped him did not belong to the realm of abstract ideologies and theorems. It was instinct, pure and simple. The instinct of a hunter, an instinct he'd acquired through pain and blood, honed by years of dedicated training and fights where missteps meant death.

He'd always done well to heed it, when it had called.

He did so now, but things were different this time around. This time he lacked the one thing that he'd had in the past--power. With a body unused to hand-to-hand combat, he could only expect at best to dodge an assailant's blows. After all, if he was to be truthful, a Quincy was a Quincy because of his spirit manipulation abilities. Now that he had no access to those powers, could he even go so far as to still call himself that?

But first things first, he had to take care of his vision. Slowly he slid his arm across the white linen of his bed sheets to his nightstand and let his fingers sweep the cold wooden surface until he felt the smooth silver-steel frame of his glasses. Whatever it was that was coming would not find him so unprepared as to leave his view of the world in a blurry haze. If knowledge meant gaining the upper hand in any battle, then equipping oneself with the tools necessary to gain it, even if it simply meant wearing bifocals, was essential. The best strategists in history knew that. And the worst would do well to pay attention to it.

Seconds dragged on into minutes. He heard the soft tick-tock-tick-tock of his alarm clock. But what finally did assail him in the dead of the night was nowhere near his wildest imagination.

A rough hand grabbed one of Ishida's own.

He struggled. He threw kicks and punches but he was kicking and punching air. Nothing connected. The hand that gripped his was tight, too tight. He felt the blood drain from his hand as its circulation was cut. He could not run. He was like a fly pinned against a giant spider web, about to be devoured.

"Let--" Ishida lifted his voice, shouted. But the words died in his mouth.

A hand clamped against his mouth drowned out his protests. A sharp disdainful voice against his ear made him shiver. He knew the voice that calmly said,

"Be a good boy, will you. You shouldn't do that, you know. It'll just wake everyone up in the building."

Teeth bit into an earlobe, drawing blood. The reiatsu that now flowed over him was that of the Shinigami whose very existence brought Ishida closer and closer to the undeniable and unmistakable fact that he _wanted_ Kurosaki Ichigo--wanted him in a way that he didn't, couldn't, and wouldn't acknowledge to the boy in question.

But he did not want the Shinigami like this. No. Not like this at all.

_No. No. No. No. _He wanted to scream but he could not.

Then he sensed it.

Something felt odd. Like a dissonant chord or an out of tune violin in an otherwise well tuned orchestra, there was a rough and almost jagged edge to the reiatsu that now enveloped him like a shroud. And mixed in somewhere was a hint of something he could not name, a darkness that threatened to choke and smother. It was, oddly enough, like a hollow's. Alarm bells rang in Ishida's mind.

Then another thought hit Ishida, almost making him gasp: How could he not have sensed Kurosaki's approach? The Shinigami hardly had any control of his reiatsu and lately, whether due to sleep deprivation or some other reason, the spirit force of the Shinigami had run rampant, unchecked, at a rather high level. So much so that, even in his sleep, he felt the Shinigami's presence, like a physical force. The other's reiatsu twisted and turned his dreams into paths he would rather not have dwelt on but nonetheless found persistently pleasurable, even for his own physical body.

Or had he somehow known as he'd dreamed. Had he somehow sensed the Shinigami's approach but had, whether knowingly or unconsciously, denied it? So used as he was to the orange-haired boy's presence that he had dismissed it?

Even now he remembered how it had been. The pressure of miles of blood red water had pushed him down, drowning him. It had crushed his chest as he had fought to emerge; fought to reach the woman in a sakura-colored kimono and red parasol he'd only ever seen in the one faded photograph that had survived Ryuuken's purge.

He felt sweat trickle down his face, made his shirt stick to his skin.

As if reading his mind, sensing the doubt emanating from him, the voice at his ear whispered, ice and vehemence in its tone. "Oh, I am who you think I am. Make no mistake."

Ishida gulped down his dread. This was not Kurosaki Ichigo. At least, not the same Kurosaki Ichigo that haunted him day and night, in thoughts and in reality.

With a sudden burst of speed and force, the man at his back pinned him against the wall. They were locked body to body like the hilts of two swords. Unable to move, unable to evade or defend, he felt the Shinigami twist his arms until he had them pinned behind his back. He registered the knotted hardness of a rope pass between his wrists and, as though the Shinigami had done this every day, cinched it tight until his hands could barely wiggle.

"Stop it. This has gone too far, Kurosaki," he hissed underneath his breath, unable to do anything else.

He heard a long low chuckle. Ishida shuddered. It was a laugh full of manic intent and blood lust, the laugh of a conqueror about to mete out judgment on its prey. He'd only ever heard such a laugh once before, from the hollow that had torn his beloved grandfather and sensei into bloody shreds before his very eyes. It had been the laugh of that hollow taking pleasure in desecrating the body, its foul claws raking against already dead flesh, sharp teeth ripping apart limbs, spiked tail gouging deep trenches into the visage of the one man Ishida had ever truly respected, ever truly considered anything close to being a real father.

A hand smashed his face into the wall until he felt and heard the unmistakable crack of nose cartilage breaking. Then, as though following a predetermined course of action, he was summarily flung onto the middle of his bed.

Ishida felt the linen of his sheets crumple as he landed head first into the mattress. His face pressed against the cloth while his glasses stuck to his eyelids. One of his feet dangled off the edge of the bed while the other, having tried to cushion his fall, was bent in half by his torso.

He heard the mattress creak, felt the springs trying to balance and distribute the new weight on it as his assailant steadily approached him. A hand slipped under his chin made his head bend back. His glasses were roughly peeled off and thrown against the wall with force and violence. He heard the unmistakable tinkle of glass breaking and the clatter of the silver-steel frame hitting the floor.

Then utter and complete darkness.

This was not, however, the darkness of a night when there's a new moon and an overcast sky that blocks out even the smallest and faintest of stars. This was darkness where no amount of moonlight, no amount of _any_ light could penetrate. It cut off sight, isolated, and encompassed his totality, seeping into his bones, his body, and his soul. It was a darkness that ate at him and made every touch, every sound, every smell, and every taste ache and burn it into the very core of his being.

He tried to ease the pressure the coarse roughness of the thick cloth passed over his eyes made as it pressed against his eyeballs, as though the man who now crouched above him had wanted to pop them out in the process.

Sensitive as he already was to any sensory stimuli, that was nothing compared to this. The feel of his pajama pants roughly pushed down against his skin, briefly to catch against his cock, made him gasp in surprise. The night air that raised goose pimples on the exposed cheeks of his butt felt icy, raw. The hot wetness of a tongue that licked its way up from the crack of his butt to the nape of his neck, all the while shoving his top up and up until it bunched up over his shoulders, made him moan. The rough hands that pinched and pressed, pulled and teased his nipples made him immobile as wave after wave of pleasure and pain coursed down to make his groin hotter, his cock stiffer.

He gasped each time fingers ripped his hair, raked his skin. He writhed with each bone on bone contact of fists. He felt the tingling flow of semen leek from its head. He tasted the unmistakable tang of it in the air mixed with the smell of sweat, human, Shinigami, and the faintest trace of cologne. He winced from the scratchy hardness of the rope that bound his wrists as it dug into flesh, scraping and burning it with every little move he made. He heard each sigh, each rustle of cloth over the creak of the bed; heard the hard panting breaths they both took and, like listening to oneself over a tape recorder, each moan and whimper that rose unbidden to his throat despite all attempts to silence it.

His sense of time had likewise been suspended. But it hadn't been too long since they started when, abruptly, hands and tongue stopped. Then with brusque brutality, his legs were spread apart, forced to bend and hold that position by nails digging into his flesh.

And the long hardness of a cock, hot and pulsing, thrust into his virgin hole without any preamble, splitting his skin, making it bleed. The corners of his eyes moistened with tears of pain. He choked back a scream. He tried to struggle but found that lying face first into the mattress in the position he was in did not make it easy to rebel.

He was fucked raw.

No pleasure now. Only pain, as if even the foreplay had been begrudgingly given. Or had been for the enjoyment of the assailant and not his.

No. This was not how he'd wanted it to happen.

He was so near to release when all movement stopped. The still hard cock slipped out of him. The bed springs creaked as the weight that had earlier depressed them disappeared. The scent of Shinigami and cologne was now only a lingering trace that would fade into the night's air within a few more minutes. The reiatsu that ran through him like electric shocks at each bodily contact and the lust he felt emanating from it was gone from his side.

Alone, he resisted the urge to cry--to cry his frustration, his indignation, his need and want, his love and affection. He remembered the admonition Ryuuken had given him once so many years ago. _An Ishida never cries_. Quincy never cry. At the very least he would keep that last morsel of dignity he had left.

He would never beg, never cry.

Except, he already had.

* * *

_**Act 0.02 - Ichigo**_

* * *

_Monday, 11:31 pm_

_Shit. Shit. Shit_.

Ichigo felt his chest tighten. He tried to grip the steel frame of his bed. But despite the prop he still felt as though he was about to collapse for the second time on the same day.

He felt his insides roiling and he felt like retching, except he hadn't really eaten anything. He knew Yuzu was worried sick but he knew there was no helping it. Everything smelled like blood. Tasted like blood.

His entire body ached like one massive hurt. It felt as though every inch of his skin was a gaping wound, a thousand searing lacerations.

It had begun after he'd pushed himself to take on a hollow he'd encountered on the way back from school. It had been about to devour two konpaku, not more than a few years old, hands clasped and trembling before the flashing red eyes and dripping, drooling tongue. One boy. One girl. They could not run. They could not scream. One of the hollow's five hands gripped them tightly, squeezing them, making them splutter with faces slowly turning blue from asphyxiation. He could not, in his right mind, have simply walked by and left them to their fate, could he? So he'd stepped into Shinigami form and dispatched the hollow with one strike.

But it seemed as though that one strike was something even his spirit form did not have the stamina for anymore. He had, in all ways, overreached himself.

It had only been the strong determination to not pass out in the middle of the street that allowed him to get home. No matter that each step he took made his world reel. No matter that sharp pins stabbed his gut, made him stumble. In the end it had taken him thrice as long to get to the front door of the clinic, by which time dinner had been set.

And he hadn't eaten because everything seemed to choke him.

But the strength that was allowing him to stay upright and conscious was waning. He felt his world slide in and out of darkness. He tried to blink away the spots in his vision. They became more persistent, the pressure against his eyeballs increasing every second.

He almost considered tramping down to ask his dad to rush him to the hospital on suspicion of a stroke. Except he knew this was no stroke. The voice in his head told him as much.

_He he. Not holding up well are you, king? Tsk. You should sleep more, you know. Go to dreamland and play with dancing, writhing skeletons. Maybe even see that Quincy you enjoyed seeing raped the last time. Maybe this time he'll get fucked raw by rotting and decomposing corpses. That would be a nice sight, wouldn't it? _

_Take my _present_ as a hint, King. _

_Sleep._

_Then maybe you'll eventually find the taste and smell of blood just as enjoyable as I find it._

Ichigo screamed a silent wordless scream that echoed in his sideways inner world. He felt it bounce off the glass walls of the buildings, reverberating in the nonexistent air. And he fought. He fought to retain that scrap of consciousness that allowed him to hold onto his bed for support, that allowed his feet to remain planted on the floor.

But he was fighting a losing battle. If this had been a chess game maybe his wrong move had been the very first one.

And he slid face first into the floorboards and into the vision.

* * *

It was a desert of white sand ground from countless bones. The heat stung his bare skin, evaporated what little moisture was in the air, in his skin. He could see nothing move, no living thing for miles. Only the white bone sand and the granite pillars that rose from the ground at fixed intervals. But with five suns blazing directly overhead there was no shadow under which he could hide. No relief from the unbroken white world that extended before him in all directions.

Then he felt the sand underneath his feet shake and liquefy, dragging his feet into the ground like so much quick sand. He fought, he struggled. But with his feet firmly caught in the sucking vortex below him, coupled with the energy-sapping heat of the place, he lacked the strength to break free.

He sank lower and lower until it wasn't only the sand pulling him into its bowels. Hands. Paper white hands gripped his ankles, pawed at his legs and thighs, dragging him down. They crawled up his abdomen, reached for his throat, ready to strangle. They wrapped around his arms, human manacles restraining all impulses for movement and escape.

The last he saw of the white desert were the granite pillars. Except they weren't made of granite anymore. They were filled with the yellow of eyes. Thousands upon thousands of eyes. The spaces between them were mouths split into malevolent, evil grins. _You_, he thought. _Yes, me_, It answered in its distorted version of his own voice, before the darkness swallowed him up in its yawning jaws.

Shaking, he found himself in a room where the walls and the floor were made of clear glass. He hung upside down from the ceiling like the Tarot's Fool. Or was this really the floor except that, just as he was, it had likewise been pinned to the roof? Below he saw his body slumped against the floor of his bedroom, twitching but otherwise as lifeless as a doll. Then he saw his hollow Other appear and stoop down to the empty shell of his physical form. With a last smirk at Ichigo who was tied to the glass room's ceiling, It stepped into his physical body as if filling up a limp balloon.

_Sit quietly and watch. You'll enjoy this too, if this afternoon was any indication_. Indecent amusement laced Its voice.

Ichigo roared, unsure if the Other that was now piloting his body even heard.

* * *

He watched his body grip the Quincy tight until Ishida's palms paled from the lack of blood circulation; saw the widened eyes flare with a fear the dark-haired boy tried to desperately suppress as the Other in his body whispered "Oh, I am who you think I am. Make no mistake." He watched, impotent in his glass prison, as his Other rammed Ishida against the wall, pinning him like a fly in a spider web. He watched that Other him tie the dark-haired boy's wrists with rope, shouting his own curses as he heard Ishida hiss "Stop it. This has gone too far, Kurosaki." He implored the creature inside him that had never known the word mercy. He implored the Quincy who could no more hear him than hear the song of heavenly angels.

_No, that's not me Ishida! Open your fucking eyes and REALIZE that That is not me! Do you _honestly_ think I would do something like this?_

_Damn Shirosaki! STOP! This isn't a fucking joke! Get the hell away from Ishida, RIGHT NOW!_

_HEY. You can hear me, can't you? WILL YOU FUCKING ANSWER ME OR WHAT?_

But it was as if he was at the bottom of a deep dark well.

He watched his Other self throw the Quincy against the bed. He watched him inch closer to the Quincy and with a sharp, almost neck-breaking yank, pulled the dark-haired boy's face towards him in order to apply a blindfold.

Then he realized the ultimate cruelty that his hollow Other had in store. He realized it when he felt the heat of skin, tasted the salty sweat-flecked flesh, and smelled the faintest trace of cologne lacing the overpowering scent of semen--his and Ishida's. He realized that even as he was separated from his body all his body's sensations were still his. Or rather, his hollow Other _allowed_ him not only to see but also to feel, to taste, to smell, to hear.

It was as if he himself, there in his glass-walled prison, held to the roof by unseen manacles, was the one fucking the Quincy into oblivion. It was as if he himself were the one pulling the Quincy's nipples until they were elongated, rock hard, and aching. It was as if he himself were the one pushing his own rock hard penis into the boy's hot and virgin entrance, his semen and the Quincy's blood its only lubricants.

He felt each thrust, felt the burning heat surrounding his cock as he rammed into the Quincy up to his balls. He fought his own rising desires at each constriction of the Quincy's tight ass as he attempted to pull back, only to thrust even harder and deeper, splitting the Quincy open again and again. He heard the boy's moans and whimpers, urging him on at that same time that it was begging him to stop.

And suddenly it _was_ him fucking the Quincy. He wasn't in the glass prison anymore. He wasn't looking helplessly down at a scene he could no more stop than stop himself from feeling arousal while watching his hollow Other fuck the dark-haired boy senseless. He was in his own body. Except that his penis was still in the Quincy and was still so terribly aroused as it pumped in and out at a violent pace.

He had to stop, this was too much. His hollow Other had done too much. _He'd_ done too much.

He yanked his cock out and, despite the overwhelming lust he felt at the sight of the Quincy bound and blindfolded beneath him, mouth open, gasping and panting for breath, he did not press his advantage. Instead, he eased out of the bed and hastily put on his clothes.

_Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry._ He wanted to beg forgiveness a million times over but he could not. His voice was choked, unwilling to cooperate with his desperate need to relieve himself of those words--even if Ishida would never ever forgive him for what'd he'd done that night. Instead, he left the Quincy's room after placing the broken edge of one of the lenses of the other boy's glasses beside him on the bed--whether as a way to cut off his bonds or as a means to kill the perpetrator he would leave to Ishida to decide.


	3. Guilt and Aftershock

**Part III: Guilt and Aftershock**

_Life is a perpetual instruction in cause and effect._

_- Ralph Waldo Emerson_

* * *

_**Guilt 0.01 - Ichigo**_

_Tuesday, 2:10am_

_Oh God. Tell me, are you still alive? Tell me, why? Why is it that whatever I hold in my hands I break? Tell me..._

_...all I wanted was to protect everyone I've ever loved._

* * *

_Fuck._ Ichigo pounded the wall of the shower as the cold water mingled with his hot tears. Each drop was ice on his skin while the warmth of his tears mocked him. He pressed his forehead against the cold tile as his body slid down. Why couldn't it have been just him who got hurt? Why?

Let the cold freeze him. Let him drown, let him...

He held onto his arms, his nails biting into his flesh drawing blood. He grasped his shoulders as his body rocked and shuddered, the weight that had lodged in his chest seeking some form of release. He wanted someone, anyone, to hold him, to take him as he was and mend the tattered edges of his soul even if it meant destroying his body. But he refused to be held, refused to seek someone, anyone, to mend the fraying of his soul. Not when he knew the warped existence that was claiming him while he fought in vain to regain dominance cared not for place or time, age or gender, so long as It could continue to satisfy Its craving and bloodlust.

Except he wasn't really alone.

He felt _that _Other's touch as It stroked his cheek. He shivered as the colder-than-ice fingers traced the edge of his jaw, pressed against his jugular. He cringed as Its tongue made circles around his navel, teased his still rock hard cock as though It refused to let the proof of his complicity and guilt fade with the water splashing over both their bodies.

And he felt ashamed that he desired the release his Other could give him, gave him.

Just as he'd desired Ishida. Just as he still desired him.

Shame on him who, despite the hatred that burned in his heart for this being that was both him and not him, felt pleasure at every skin-on-skin contact, arched at every lap on his manhood. Shame on him who willingly now allowed this creature before him to nurse him if only to break him again.

Shame. Was there any end to a seemingly bottomless pit? Was there any limit to how much a man could endure until he broke?

Or was he already broken?

_Oh God. Tell me, can you still hear me? Or have you shut yourself up in some high tower I cannot reach? Tell me, can I still be saved? Or am I forever damned?_

* * *

_Tuesday, 5:20am_

Ichigo picked himself up from the bathroom floor. His feet had gone numb, his fingers and toes slightly blued from the cold. The eyes that stared back at him from the mirror were blank and dead, their whites almost entirely black. He closed his eyes to block out the sight of the malicious yellow eyes that showed no mercy, to block the memory of fearful blue eyes that beseeched him.

He didn't bother to comb the hair that matted his forehead, didn't bother to dry his skin as he pulled on a jacket over the scratch wounds that peppered his skin. He needed to get away, far away. He wanted no one close when _that_ happened--when the hollow inside him once more chose to rear its shit-filled ugly head and bring some greater misfortune to some other soul. He wanted no one to see the blood-red hickeys that dotted his neck, torso, and lower body, visible signs of his own depravity. He wanted no one to ask why his voice had died sometime in the night, unable to bear the burdens of arousal, guilt, and hate.

The world slept, oblivious.

Like the sleep of death.

He made his way down without attracting the attention of Isshin, Yuzu, or Karin. Of all people he wanted no one in his family to know, to find out that the monster had lived under the same roof, breathed the same air as they had for the past months. He wanted no one in his family to see in that monster not the paper-white skin of the hollow but his own flesh and blood. He wanted no one in his family to feel the pain of being violated by the very person they'd trusted to protect them. _Just as Ishida was_.

He opened the door of the clinic and stepped out to find himself in the middle of driving rain. He didn't care. He wanted the rain. Maybe the rain might cleanse the red and white stains on his hands and on his heart. Maybe the rain might wash away the leaden stone that seemed stuck in the pit of his stomach, wash away the sin.

He ran.

* * *

He ran as he had never before run. If only for a brief span of time, if only for a breath, he wanted to let go of everything--past, present, future. To let go so that all there would be was the sensation of water cascading down his already rain-soaked body, the splashing sound his feet made as they hit pavement and puddle.

_Shit._ Was there no way to return to how it used to be. Before his Other. Before all this shit happened that made him wonder if deep down, despite his own statements to the contrary, he enjoyed the pain and the bloodshed. Before the silent longings of his heart were wretched from his innermost core and made into _that_ mockery he refused to think of, refused to dwell on lest his own unfulfilled desire propel him to seek the Quincy and once more violate and hurt the boy's body and soul.

He ran to forget but in the end there was no forgetting. Because whatever little peace he found in the exercise was only that, a fleeting excuse, a temporary respite. When the memories came flooding back they did so with the sharpness of a broken bottle gouging at his innards.

He wondered if it would be so even in death.

* * *

_**Guilt 0.02 - Ishida**_

_Tuesday, 8:10am_

They talked. They whispered--and wondered. The look on their faces said everything. Their confusion, curiosity, and dumbfound amazement. Ishida could read them like an open book, read the thoughts that flitted across their wide-open and staring eyes.

"Look at his hands! It can't possibly be due to a fall, can it? Just like last time."

"There's no question now, is there? Mr. Top Student was fighting!"

...Just like last time.

He ignored the way their eyes followed him back to his seat. He ignored the elbows that poked at their seatmate's sides as if to say "Hey, take a look at that" even though everyone could perfectly well see the white bandages that were wrapped around his wrists, his fingers; plastered across his nose.

He had no obligation to try to explain to these idiots and certainly he had no need for their sympathy. Besides, what would he say? "I got fucked bound and blindfolded and, since my rapist left me no other choice, I had to use a piece of broken glass to cut the ropes binding my wrists" wasn't exactly the sort of statement he relished delivering. And that was excluding the fact that it wasn't just anybody who'd crept into his room in the middle of the night.

The empty seat to his left and diagonally behind him felt conspicuously empty.

* * *

He knew, as his eyes briefly met hers, that she understood, that she knew his pain and though she could heal his wounds it wasn't her he wanted, wasn't her who could ease the hemorrhaging of his heart. She likewise knew better than to ask "Why?"

Why couldn't he have just truly fallen in love with Inoue instead? Why did he still love that idiot of a Shinigami despite last night, despite everything?

Why couldn't he just admit it? Why did he know that he never would be able to?

He'd lain in the middle of his bed, battered and his hard-on undiminished despite the cold air chilling him to the bone. Unable to see, he had only his own internal time telling him that at least an hour had passed since he'd been left alone in his apartment. He'd fucked himself with the mattress, alternating relaxing and contracting his lower body as he had lain belly flat against the white linen. He'd felt the roughness of the cloth stimulating his cock into much needed orgasm, much needed release. But it had not been enough. His desire had still remained as engorged as his throbbing cock.

Another hour had been spent trying to break free of the ropes that bound him, the glass shard he'd managed to grasp in one hand lacerating the flesh of his fingers, slicing his wrists. He'd felt the warmth of his blood dripping down onto his back and thighs and prayed he hadn't cut any arteries or veins. He wasn't suicidal and he had no plans of being mistaken as such if he had to rush himself to the hospital.

And when he'd gotten himself free he'd quickly hunched up and fisted his cock. He could still remember each touch, each thrust into him. He'd fingered himself _down there_--there where that stupid stupid Shinigami had rammed himself and connected with Ishida and made Ishida desire the boy even more. He'd nursed himself, there in the middle of a semen and blood-spattered bed, wanting so desperately to forget yet unwilling to let go of the sensations, unwilling to stop remembering when he knew that things would never be the same; _they _would never be the same. There would always be this between them, always _this night_ that would stop their laughter, their banter and bickering and fights.

They would never speak of what had happened, that he knew. It would lie dark and festering between them. He had too much pride to admit to the Shinigami he desired the boy--even in this manner. Ichigo had too much of a sense of duty and responsibility to ever face him squarely. There would only be the every present _sorry_ that would be stamped on his face in every look, in every gesture that he would never be able to say even if that single word could unravel the hurts and allow them both to nurse each other's wounds.

* * *

_**Guilt 0.03 - Urahara**_

_Tuesday, 9:57am_

Urahara watched the young boy. He knew better than to ask. Ichigo would talk of his own accord and if the substitute Shinigami refused, then he had no right to pry into what certainly looked like a very personal matter.

He had his hypotheses. There were relatively few reasons why someone would run--and he knew the orange-haired boy had ran--in the middle of rain for so long that the skin on the boy's fingers had already wrinkled in the way skin would if one placed them in a basin of water for a long time. The boy had likewise not gone directly to him. The mud entrenched in the ridges of the soles of the boy's sneakers clearly indicated Ichigo had first made his way to the park which was on the opposite side of town.

He had waited for the boy in the front room of the store. He'd had a warm bath prepared and ready when he'd felt Ichigo's reiatsu approaching and immediately ushered the boy to the baths even before he'd had a chance to issue a greeting. Not that he expected any. The look on the boy's face told him enough of the consternation--and guilt, the boy felt even without the irregular rise and fall as well as the jagged almost torn edge of his reiatsu alerting Urahara to the boy's state of mind.

In fact, he was almost certain he knew what the substitute Shinigami's problem was.

There was only so much _hollow_ any boy of his age and experience could handle when the demon in question lived within the boy's very self.

Oh he knew. He knew about that _Other_ Ichigo. He'd guessed it when the boy had emerged from his training session with the mask on his face whole. He became sure of it when Yoruichi had come back with the kids after their foray into Soul Society carrying that very same mask and a story of how it had reappeared to protect the orange-haired Shinigami from fatal wounds. He'd seen the symptoms before, and knew the dangers. Sarugaki Hiyori had been his underling when the existence of such intermingling of Shinigami and hollow became known and immediately buried and forgotten except by a few like him. Maybe Aizen had gotten his ideas back at that time too. He wouldn't be surprised.

Vizard. The difference between Ichigo and Sarugaki was control. Unlike those former Shinigami, Ichigo's inner hollow continued to rampage, continued to wrestle for control. But even if he knew that, without learning how to tame the beast, ultimate destruction of self was inevitable. He could no more help the Shinigami than the next person on the street. Only his former underling and her comrades had any idea of what it took to master their demons and unleash the power that they had the potential to command.

The orange-haired Shinigami placed the hot tea he'd been nursing in his hands onto the table. It seemed that the time had come to finally talk.

"I want to leave Urahara-san."

The boy's voice was soft, lacking the usual brash and insolent edge it wore--at least when the boy addressed him. _He's at the end of the line...or nearly at least...for him to be like this. _He would test the boy and his resolve.

"Well it's true that many couples this time of year break up and look for their own ways. Maybe it's because of the onset of colder weather and the dreary rains, no?"

Ichigo looked at him straight in the eye. He was serious.

"I want to leave Karakura, Urahara-san."

He wanted the boy to weigh his words. There was finality in such decisions. It wasn't just a matter of a change in address. It meant a cutting off of ties. He understood the logic behind the request well enough; unable to handle the power that was consuming him the boy thought that at the very least he could distance himself from the people he loved, or even people in general. He wouldn't be surprised if Ichigo asked to be relocated to a mountaintop to live a hermit life until his Other overtook him or somehow by some miracle he managed to hold that Other at bay.

If they were not careful, isolation could only speed up the process of demise.

Yet the decision was not his to make but Ichigo's.

"Are you absolutely certain, Kurosaki-kun? It's like marriage, you know. Once you say yes, there's no turning back."

Ichigo looked at a spot on the floor somewhere to his right. Urahara knew the options that played themselves out in the substitute Shinigami's mind. He guessed at the one that had dwelt uppermost in the boy's thoughts. It would be a waste if he chose that path but at the rate things were going it might well be the sole solution. In the end, just as it had been on the day he'd regained his Shinigami powers back, it might well be Urahara himself who would do the graces.

"I--I am. ...But I won't abandon my post or anything," Ichigo said finally.

Urahara nodded. The boy had his heart in the right place at least, if not his mind. There was only so much a guy who was afraid of total possession could do. In fact it might even be better to take Ichigo out of the picture for a while, at least until the substitute Shinigami had his problem under better control.

"Of course not. It wouldn't be noble of you wouldn't it, if you simply left and never again bothered with the war and all," he said

"So...will you inform me if...when...something happens?" Ichigo asked.

"And you need my help to 'spirit you away', right?"

Ichigo nodded.

Urahara looked at Ichigo through one eye. "And what will you have me say to your friends when they ask?"

The boy thought. Hard. But in the end, as Urahara knew, he wouldn't be able to come up with the words.

"I--I leave that to you, Urahara-san."

Urahara stood up and, waving a hand towards the inner room, called on his young assistants. He instructed them to go to the storeroom and take the small black box on the top shelf. This time he was sure neither would make a mistake. There was only one such box in the entire store. It had been there for so long he'd almost forgotten it existed. After all the time that he'd spent in hiding, something that he'd managed to get out of Soul Society as he'd fled and hadn't had the opportunity to sell or make use of ever since was likely so dusty they'd have to scrape the dust off just to open it.

Turning back to Ichigo, he addressed the boy once more.

"I'll inform your father that you'll be staying at my place for a while."

Pause. "That would be best."

The sound of a screen sliding alerted him that his assistants were back. He took a metallic collar from the box Ururu handed him. It looked similar to the one Seiretei used on convicted criminals, like the one Kuchiki Rukia had worn while she'd been detained. The only difference was that this was completely black and a hair's breadth narrower. Jagged lines crisscrossed the inner circle. Once worn the band could only be released by the very specific reiatsu that had attached the collar to the wearer. He handed the device to Ichigo while saying,

"Also, since I would presume you'd rather no one else knew where you were, I'll sell you a spirit-controller. Artificially keeps your reiatsu hidden. Of course you can't transform to Shinigami form with it. That'll be ten thousand yen. I suppose I'll have to bill your father for that too. Or do you have a credit card with you? I accept Visa, you know."

Ichigo looked at the black collar in his hands. The solid weight of the device was like a reminder of the finality of what he'd begun. "Thank you, Urahara-san," he said, quietly while continuing to look.

"I'll accept your thanks later Kurosaki-kun. I haven't done anything yet. Now get yourself down to the basement and behave. I'll have quite a few transactions to do before I attend to you further."

Urahara watched Ichigo leave the room. He had a feeling Sarugaki would come for the substitute Shinigami sometime soon. The time was ripe. When that time came he would lead them straight to where the Shinigami was holed in. He had an inkling that despite the Vizard's dislike and distrust of Shinigami in general they'd nonetheless tolerate a _former_ Captain if they could be led to their prize. And prize Ichigo certainly would be. The kid was strong, always had been else he wouldn't have bothered training the boy. Stronger than any of the Vizard if he managed to completely master his hollow self.

And when that time did happen, would the boy become their enemy as well?

* * *

_**Guilt 0.04 - Ichigo**_

_Tuesday, 10:20am_

This was right. This was the right thing to do. He needed to get as far away from everyone as he could. He wanted to endanger no one anymore. He wanted no one to be hurt anymore. Ichigo knew, if he stayed, that Other within him would only lash out with even more vindictiveness and brutality against the people Ichigo had any connection with.

Even now he felt that Other grumble. But at least It had quieted down somewhat under the threat he'd made in the park to kill himself.

Yes, he'd actually considered that. He'd considered ending his life if it meant that he could spare everyone the pain he would inevitably cause if his inner hollow took possession of him. It was an unfortunately attractive solution at this point. The back of his mind couldn't help but note that, if he did kill himself, maybe...somehow...Ishida would come to know how utterly sorry he was. But when he'd tried to turn the broken edge of a razor to his throat, ready to plunge it, the devil inside him gripped his hands until they nearly broke. With a hiss that Other had declared he would not let Ichigo die. If Ichigo attempted suicide again he would take over in a flash of light because see, he could if he wanted take over right now, right there in the middle of the park, and wreck havoc on the unsuspecting population of Karakura. They wouldn't even need Aizen and his band of goons to level the place. Only he, Shirosaki, was enough.

And the twisted heart his Other had would love every minute of it.

* * *

_to be continued..._

* * *


	4. Bitterness and Lies

**Part IV: Bitterness and Lies**

_Oh, what a tangled web we weave,  
When first we practice to deceive!_

_- Sir Walter Scott

* * *

  
_

_**Bitterness 0.01 - Ishida**_

_Monday, the following week, 8:20am_

_Just another day... This is just another day..._

_But do I really still believe that everything is right, that everything is as perfect as it was then and will always be? How long since the words _just another day_ became a mantra necessary to survival? Time stopped when you left me in my room to figure out my tangled emotions and broken body--and it hasn't started since._

Ishida walked resolutely towards his desk. It had been almost a week since Ichigo had stopped coming to class. A quick glance at the still empty seat told Ishida that today was no exception. From what he'd heard from Inoue, Ichigo was nowhere to be found. It wasn't just in school. The Shinigami wasn't around--anywhere. Inoue had said she'd gone to the Kurosaki clinic and had been told by a tearful Yuzu that her Ichi-nii hadn't come home in almost a week. And that the last time he'd been home he had looked so deathly ill and refused to eat that she'd been afraid they'd have to send him to Karakura General Hospital. No one apparently knew his whereabouts. Not that Ishida had bothered to ask anyone. His pride wouldn't let him. What he knew he'd only overheard in the bits and pieces of conversation he'd chanced upon when passing by the halls or from what Inoue, who had taken it up to herself to keep Ishida informed, tearfully confided in him.

Seated, Ishida felt his irritation rise. Clenching his fist, he fought to keep it from reaching his face. He hated having anything break the careful mask he'd constructed. And lately the sight of the seat normally occupied by the orange-head grated on his nerves, made him want to lash out. Its emptiness yawned wide, mocking him.

Today, however, was different. It was more than the usual irritation that brought to his mouth its bitter aftertaste. Seated there amidst the laughter of high schoolers without a care in the world he knew that the events of the previous evening, coupled with the sight of that still empty chair, were slowly taking him to that precarious edge he had vowed never to cross.

While dimly aware that Ms. Ochi had just entered the room he recalled how he had gone out at night to the convenience store when he'd felt the sudden spike of that unmistakable reiatsu. And he had trembled. But it was not because he was scared. No. A Quincy is never scared. He had trembled in want...and in _need_. He had realized with a start that he _missed_ the way that reiatsu had curled about his body _that_ night.

And the growing realization that it wasn't just the attraction? lust? ..._sex?_ that he missed was unhinging him.

He remembered how his heart had skipped a beat, causing his movements to falter. He remembered how he'd clutched the small plastic bag of supplies he'd been carrying. He remembered how he had wanted to use hirenkyaku to transport himself to where he felt the beginnings of a fight.

Yet his feet had remained firmly planted on the ground.

And then of course the world caught up to him. Or more precisely, that unusual hollow and _Ryuuken_ had.

And that was another problem he'd have to sort out. Another headache. He wanted the power Ryuuken--his _father_--had offered to return to him. Oh how he wanted it. Ever since he'd lost it in Soul Society, even though he knew what he'd risked when he'd removed the glove on his hand, he'd felt incomplete. As though some part of him had _died_ in that other place and he'd never recovered it since. But this man he'd barely ever conceded as a father was offering to return what he'd lost.

Except was he willing to pay the price?

_Do I really want to break my ties with Kurosaki--forever? Even if I can have my powers back? Even if I can be whole again? Is...forgetting...that idiot too much to ask? ...Or is it that can I even forget?_

Ishida clasped his hands tighter. He felt the tips of his fingers bite into his flesh, making moon-shaped depressions. It hurt. But the pain was not unwelcome. He needed it to refocus himself. It would do him no good to think about it now. The answer would come readily enough when the time came. So Ishida clenched his hands tighter until he felt the slight tingle on his skin brought about by the lack of blood circulation. It was only then he relaxed his grip but not too much that the pressure his fingertips exerted were lost.

In front, Ms. Ochi finished her usual morning roll call. Perhaps later Ishida would realize that it wasn't exactly her _usual_ roll call because today, unlike the previous days, she consciously left out Kurosaki Ichigo from the names she'd called out. Perhaps if he had been paying enough attention to the process and not merely tuning it out, filtering it as routine, he would not have been as surprised by the announcement she made after attendance had been called. But he had not. And her words were the signal that began the spiral, releasing the dam of his emotions.

"As of today, Kurosaki Ichigo will no longer be attending this school."

All around him, Ishida could hear the murmurs of his classmates. He saw heads leaned towards each other, unmindful of the other announcements being made, their faces openly shocked or ridiculing. But all that reached him were words broken and incomplete as though through a badly tuned radio.

"...withdrawn...?"

"...didn't hear anything..."

"...left town..."

The news would make its rounds of school soon enough. The vultures would come and pick at the bones. And where their voices would not reach their eyes would betray their confusion, puzzlement, and for some, derision. Ishida closed his eyes, trying to block out the sights and the sounds.

_Kurosaki...Is this...what you really want? Was it because you couldn't face me that you decided to leave? Do I not even have the right to be heard out? Or do you not care at all what I think?_

From behind him he could hear the quiet sobs of Inoue. He wanted to reach out and take her hand just as she had done once for him before. But just as he had been last night, he found he could not move. His fingers continued to grip his flesh tightly, hands clenched tight. His ears rang.

But the end was not yet in sight.

There was no count down, no gradual fading. All there was an abrupt stop, an abrupt absence. It was as if someone had decided to suddenly put down a set of blinders so that he could not see, could not feel. The reiatsu that had been in flux since that evening, that reiatsu that had assaulted him in the silence of his room as the hands, tongue, and body of _that_ man had travelled over his most intimate of areas, simply vanished. One moment it was there, the next it was gone--as though the person it belonged to had simply ceased to exist.

Swallowing to alleviate the sudden dryness of his throat, Ishida called up reiraku. Slowly, he watched the strands of spirit thread unfurl. And amidst the maze of white threads he hunted for a glimpse of the distinctive red thread that was Ichigo's and Ichigo's alone.

Except the usual red strand was conspicuously absent among the white threads of reiraku he'd materialized before him.

Ishida refused to acknowledge the absence, refused to acknowledge the thought that had lodged itself in his mind the moment he felt the familiar pressure on his body evaporate like water suddenly subjected to temperatures beyond boiling point. This wasn't like _that_ time, before _that_ act, when he thought he'd failed to notice Ichigo's normally uncontrollable reiatsu. This time he'd been painfully aware of each minute fluctuation in the Shinigami's reiatsu, especially after last night's and _that_ night's incident. It was as if by virtue of having had sex with the idiot he'd somehow tuned in, entered into some realm of sympathetic vibrations, and felt in an almost palpable way each and every rise and dip in the other's spirit force like undulations within his very body, within his core. And whereas for the past few days the level had been unusually low, unusually diffuse so much so he could not pinpoint exact locations except for that one spike, for it to simply disappear...

Ishida gripped the edge of his table to prevent himself from casting another materialization in the hopes that perhaps somehow that telltale red had returned among the white.

The sudden weight of a hand touching his shoulder, however, snapped him back. It was only then that he realized that he was no longer sitting behind his desk.

"Ishida, the announcement must really have shocked you!"

Ishida swiveled to face Ms. Ochi. It felt as if his body was not his own, the heaviness of it a strange sensation. Each movement seemed to be done as though underwater. Yet it felt distant, as though he were somewhere else watching his body moving from afar. And it was from this vantage that he realized with a start that many of his classmates were staring fixedly at him, mouths agape. What expression did his face wear? He was not sure anymore. Ishida grit his teeth together and with a brief nod sank back into his seat.

_Stop it, Ishidia Uryuu. Why should you care? What does it matter to you if that idiot disappears? What does it matter if that _rapist_ never came back?_ Ishida hated the fact that he cared so much about that Shinigami. He hated the fact that even though his body had smarted from the rough sex, from the feeling of the hard manhood of the Shinigami tearing into his very being, he couldn't find it in his heart to hate the man. Indeed, the very opposite could be said to be true.

Somehow he managed to freeze his features into something resembling his normal mask. However there was no calming the pounding of his heart. It beat loudly, pressing against his chest in an attempt to break free. A quick glance told him he wasn't the only one who had noticed the change. The tightness around Sado's eyes and the unnatural wideness in Inoue's betrayed their understanding. However unlike Kurosaki who was a Shinigami neither he, Inoue, nor Sado had the ability to leave their bodies to ascertain the situation no matter how much they might wish it.

And, no matter how much he might deny the fact to himself, wish it Ishida certainly did.

* * *

**_Bitterness 0.02 - Inoue_**

_Monday, the following week 8:25am_

Inoue looked at his back. Even from where she sat she could feel the tension in him, a tightly coiled spring ready to lash out at the slightest provocation. She knew that he, perhaps more than she or Sado-kun did, felt the sudden absence of Kurosaki-kun's reiatsu. She wished she could comfort him--never mind that she herself was at the point of tears--and that she could say that it would be alright, that somehow Kurosaki would be back with then as he always was, brave, confident, and with so much life in him. But she was afraid. Somehow she felt that she'd never be able to see him again. That even if Kurosaki-kun hadn't really died whatever it was that had happened, was happening, was tantamount to it.

And if he was indeed dead...she knew he would take with him her smiles, and perhaps even her life, to the next world.

* * *

_**Bitterness 0.03 - Ishida**_

_Monday, the following week, 12:15pm_

One hour. One hour was not much time but at least it was better than nothing. It was better than having to wait agonizing hour after agonizing hour for the bell that finally dismissed them at the end of the day. Ishida had had enough of the waiting. He had had enough of his noninterference. To hell with his damned Quincy pride. If Ichigo wouldn't come to him he would find that idiot even if it meant combing through the entirety of Karakura with a fine tooth comb.

Neither was death an issue. If that idiot Shinigami had somehow died he would simply ask Urahara to transport him to Soul Society so he could search through the town for that bastard himself.

_Urahara..._

The thought made him stop in midstep. If anyone knew what was going on in Karakura it was Urahara Kisuke. Ishida had no idea who or what that other man was but he had certainly proved to be more than knowledgeable about the whereabouts of the various Shinigami. Too knowledgeable in fact.

And if Urahara Kisuke did not know where Kurosaki was then no one else would.

* * *

Even though it was lunch the door of Urahara shoten was firmly closed. Jinta and Ururu were nowhere in sight, the courtyard windswept and devoid of movement or of life. Suspicions heightened, Ishida banged his fist into the wooden door, demanding entrance, knowing full well the manager of that mysterious shop was somewhere within the building having felt the man's reiatsu from within.

It was a full five minutes before the head of the shopkeeper poked out of the door to meet an irritated and impatient Ishida.

"What can I do for you, Ishida-kun? And shouldn't you be in school right about now?"

Ishida moved past the manager into the shop proper. Urahara calmly shrugged his shoulders and ushered him to the table where two teacups, steam still rising from their lips, lay in wait--almost as if the manager was waiting for his arrival. Taking one in his hand, Ishida looked the man over. By all intents and purposes this man just looked like any other on the street, even with the oddity that was his hat and his slippers. But beneath the seeming normality was a hidden secret Ishida had yet to uncover or fully fathom.

Still, that would have to wait another day.

Ishida faced the shop manager squarely and asked. "Urahara-san, where is Kurosaki?"

He watched the brows of the man before him furrow, as though thinking hard. Did that mean even Urahara Kisuke did not know the whereabouts of the Shinigami? Impossible. With as much dealings as he had with Shinigami surely this man knew--and surely this man had sensed the sudden disappearance of that all-too-special reiatsu. And even though he knew little about the history of the man he knew they both shared the curiosity and the intelligence that demanded that the truth behind phenomena be revealed through empirical study and logic. He knew the man before him would certainly not let such a phenomena rest until he knew the answers.

Some minutes passed before Urahara uncrossed his arms and looked at Ishida from beneath the brim of his hat. He picked up the cup before him and took a sip, savoring its taste with the languid air of a man with a lot of time in his hands. Yet when he finally spoke up it was with a measured tone, as though weighing each and every word.

"Whatever makes you believe that I would know where Kurosaki-kun is?"

But before Ishida could say anything, the shoji screen that separated the store-front from the rest of the building slid open to reveal the very man Ishida wanted to see.

As their eyes met he saw Kurosaki stiffen, whatever words on the Shinigami's lips dead leaving his mouth partially open. The furrowing of his orange brows had deepened. But more than anything, Ishida recognized the emotion that flickered behind those brown eyes. It was fear. Why was Kurosaki afraid of him? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

Forgetting the tea, the table, and Urahara seated across from him, Ishida rose and crossed the room, grabbing the Shinigami by the wrists just as the latter tried to make a hasty retreat back where he came from. From beneath his hands he could feel the warmth of the other boy's skin. But there was none of the usual electricity of reiatsu battling reiatsu. In fact, the slight wince he saw the Shinigami try to cover up as he held onto him told a different story.

But all he could manage to say was, "Why?"

Ichigo briefly closed his eyes. And when he looked back at Ishida there was none of the hesitancy and trepidation that had previously marked it. Instead it was deadly serious. And his "It has nothing to do with you" bore the stamp of that same icy determination.

In contrast Ishida felt as though he were some woman begging her lover not to leave her for another. It lent an icy undertone to his own retort. "Shouldn't I have a right to know? Especially after what you did to me _that _night?"

Behind them Urahara's eyebrow rose up, interest piqued. But neither of them saw nor cared. All that mattered was the person in front of him.

And it was to the unspoken question that Ichigo responded.

"You were handy. That's all."

Ishida felt his grip loosen at the revelation. And the Shinigami took the opportunity to break free with a jerk of his arm. And before Ishida could compose himself and demand a further explanation the orange-head had disappeared, leaving him alone with his despair.

* * *

_**Bitterness 0.04 - Ichigo**_

_Monday, the following week, 12:30pm_

It was done. From the moment he put on the collar he had, in more ways than one, ceased to exist. Try as he might, he no longer felt any reiatsu--not that he had that much of a sensing ability in the first place but he no longer felt Chad, the one person whose reiatsu he _could_ feel.

_If only this worked on _him _as well..._

Ichigo fingered the cold black metal that now encased his throat and almost like a ghost over his hand, felt his _Other_ probing the metal band. It would have been too good to be true if this simple device was all it took to hold back the demon in him but he knew better. He knew, even without his Other's subtle reminders, that this was not the case...would never be the case. Try as he might, no matter how much he denied it, his _Other_ would always be there smirking at him, his paper white skin filling all his senses. As if in retribution for this act of deception that Other's voice had become deafening, that Other's presence suffocating in its closeness. It was as if, by dampening his reiatsu, some important barrier that had previously held back that beast within had snapped open.

He wished to endanger no one anymore, least of all Ishida. Indeed, since the events of _that _night he had come to realize that of all the people he wished to endanger no more it had been the Quincy who had time and time again presented himself before Ichigo. Clenching his fists, feeling the pain of his bones bruising with the pressure, Ichigo renewed his vow never to allow Shirosaki to hurt anyone again. He had to get away from Karakura _now._ Except Urahara had stubbornly said that it could not be done until that evening. In the meanwhile, Ichigo was free to fill his boredom however he wished. The only injunction had been to refrain from removing the collar otherwise all their efforts to try and mask his disappearance, especially after last night's escapade, would go down the drain.

He did not need a second telling.

No. In the moments before he'd snapped on that thin strip of ... titanium? ... around his neck, his inner hollow had attempted to rebel. For a second he'd come undone, his body going rigid as he once more lost control over his motor functions. Even now, he still felt his muscles involuntarily stiffen. The voice that filled his mind dripped with loathing and hate.

_So King, you think this will end it all, huh? Ha! Don't be a fool. There will never be an end until you accept the fact that you are _mine_ and that nothing you do will change that fact. Even this...this _thing_ around your neck will do nothing to protect you from me. _

"I know that!" Ichigo gripped his head in his hands, his body sinking down into the tatami flooring of the room. More quietly he repeated the words to himself. "I know that." He knew full well that there was no escaping the bastard Hollow in him. And what of Shinji and his offer? Ichigo did not know what to think. Could he truly trust the man? Was there truly a way to preserve his sanity even if he could not banish the evil that lurked within his being?

A sudden thought came over Ichigo. Maybe Urahara knew Shinji. Urahara seemed to know much of what happened so why not? It was worth a try. Standing up from where he was seated, Ichigo crossed the room into the deserted inner hallway. Despite having stayed with Urahara over the past few days he still found the layout of the shoten rather confusing. Knowing that the manager would be somewhere at the front of his shop minding the wares he made his way over there, sliding open the shoji screen that separated the inner parts of the house from the store.

That was when he saw _him_. At first he hadn't recognized Ishida. He had not expected the Quincy to be there. But when he had, he felt a sudden tightening in his chest. He recalled what he'd done to the Quincy the last time they had been anywhere near each other. He recalled how much he had _wanted _Ishida. That what had happened wasn't just the result of a targeted act of malevolence on the part of his inner Hollow but something that was born from his own desires.

A chill ran down Ichigo's spine, cold sweat dripping down from his shoulder blades to the crook of his back. But before he could make it back inside he felt the cold hands of the Quincy wrap around his wrists, arresting his movement.

It wasn't just the physical restraint however that held Ichigo in place. The other boy's reiatsu crawled over his skin and like electricity streaked upwards from their point of contact. Ichigo had not expected that because his own reiatsu had been suppressed, the other's reiatsu would affect him so. As it is it was as if a whip had been laid on his flesh, making him wince.

From the haze of pain he dimly heard Ishida demand of him "Why?"

Trying to get away from the pain and his Hollow Other's malicious voice taunting him, he closed his eyes. Even though he had yet to completely sort out all his feelings for Ishida one thing was clear to Ichigo. _Why? Because I wanted you to be free of any further pain. I didn't want anything to happen to you anymore--not to you, not to anybody, and certainly not by my hands because of my Other's depravity. Why? Because staying by your side would be tantamount to hurting you again._

"It has nothing to do with you," Ichigo replied.

He could see the pain that filled Ishida's normally disciplined countenance in direct conflict with the ice in the other's voice. The way the hands imperceptibly tightened around his wrists, the way the other's eyes widened ever so slightly….

It was then he realized what he needed to do. _Perhaps wounding you is the only way to preserve you._

Responding to the unspoken question, Ichigo said, "You were handy. That's all."

Feeling the grip on his wrists relenting, Ichigo pried himself loose. And before Ishida had a chance to recover from his shock and hurt--yes, he had deeply wounded the Quincy by his words--he disappeared behind the screen and behind the kido barrier that Urahara had earlier placed as a ward and an illusion that the place warded was deserted. Behind it Ichigo slumped against the wall.

_I'm sorry Ishida. I'm sorry. I would rather you live and that you experience no further pain. So forgive me this final and irrevocable act of deception.

* * *

  
_

_Author's notes: Thanks to Hitokiri Musei who did the beta for this chapter as my usual beta is currently out of commission. More to come in suceeding chapters...  
_


End file.
